Really? A link to the wiki as a whole?
To the OP: it's normal but unfortunate that with the normal client, downloading the blockchain takes quite a while, and may need restarts. It's at something like 1 and a half gigs at the moment, and growing. There are light clients (electrum, multibit) that don't need to download the whole blockchain, and there are online wallets (e.g. blockchain.info) that will allow you to get going right away. If you have a computer you can leave on all the time and with space I'd recommend using the standard client, but I'd consider using one of the ones I've mentioned or a similar one if you have to come online and offline frequently.
-bgc